This is the story of my survival, adventures, experiences, and insights about geopolitics and changing worldviews from before World War II Lithuania to Soviet occupation and my escape and evasion through wartime Germany till the end of WWII. It also talks about my life as a refugee in displaced-persons camp for four years and my immigration to the United States of America in 1949. Five years later, having graduated from the Citadel Military College, I was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the US Air Force and participated in the Cold War as a combat crew member of Strategic Air Commands Bombers B-52 and B-58. Then I had a stint with research and development of F-111 weapons systems at Wright Air Development Center and about a year in Southeast Asian war (Vietnam) with an F-111 fighter-bomber detachment. Then I went back to Europe on an US AF project. Finally, after twenty-two years, I retired from the Air Force to Southern California and worked in the aerospace industry and had new experiences and insights about mens venture into the cosmos. However, after the dissolution of Soviet Union, the old country of Lithuania became free, and I went there to help rebuild the country and pay my debt to it by consulting the general staff and teaching at the military academy there. There are more insights and adventures. Finally, I retire to cool my heels in the warm waters of the Pacific Rim in Southern Californias Rancho Palos Verdes as a freelance writer.

Selene Ravenwood, once the heir to House Ravenwood, is now an exile. On the run and free of her family's destiny, Selene hopes to find the real reason her family was given the gift of dreamwalking. But first she must adapt to her new life as wife to Lord Damien Maris, the man she was originally assigned to kill. While adjusting to her marriage and her home in the north, her power over dreams begins to grow. As the strongest dreamwalker to exist in ages, her expanding power attracts not only nightmares but the attention of the Dark Lady herself. With a war looming on the horizon and a wicked being after her gift, Selene is faced with a choice: embrace the Dark Lady's offer, or search out the one who gave her the gift of dreamwalking. One path offers power, the other offers freedom. But time is running out, and soon her choice will be made for her.

Neryn has finally found the rebel group at Shadowfell, and now her task is to seek out the elusive Guardians, vital to her training as a Caller. These four powerful beings have been increasingly at odds with human kind, and Neryn must prove her worth to them. She desperately needs their help to use her gift without compromising herself or the cause of overthrowing the evil King Keldec. Neryn must journey with the tough and steadfast Tali, who looks on Neryn's love for the double agent Flint as a needless vulnerability. And perhaps it is. What Flint learns from the king will change the battlefield entirely—but in whose favor, no one knows.

Conall II: The Raven’s Flight continues to chronicle the story of Conall and Mórrígan and the epic journey of the warriors from Ériu (Ireland). Conall and his brooding queen, Mórrígan, lead over two thousand warriors with their followers across the narrow sea separating Ériu from Albu. Their quest: the capture of Cassius Fabius Scaeva, the dissolute Roman held responsible for the slaughter of their families. The Ériu encounter human, natural, and supernatural foes and friends. At the mercy of the Aes Sídhe, a race of demi-goddesses who demand that he fulfil his geis, Conall is named the “Hand of the Goddess” and given the instrument that will crush the Na Daoine Tùrsach—a tribe of fanatical, blood-lusting priests. They battle fierce northern tribes: the Forest People's one-eyed king, Drostan Ruadh, opposes their presence, as do the Na Mèadaidh, led by the sly Finnean Mac Sèitheach. Yet, not all are enemies. The Raven People offer their support, although it too comes at a price. Heroes and villains from myth, legend, and history converge in this saga set in the vast ancient forests, frozen bogs, snow-capped mountains, and mysterious lochs of Scotland some four hundred years before the birth of Christ. The Conall Series contains scenes of sex and violence and language appropriate to the period (400 B.C.) it is set in. It is not recommended for those under 14 without parental consent.

DIVIshmael Reed’s parody of slave narratives—the classical literature of the African American tradition—which redefined the neo-slave genre and launched a lucrative academic industry/divDIV Some parodies are as necessary as the books they answer. Such is the case with Flight to Canada, Ishmael Reed’s scathing, offbeat response to conventional anti-slavery novels such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Though Flight to Canada has been classified by some as a “post race” novel, the villains and the heroes are clear./divDIV /divDIVThree slaves are on the run from the Swille plantation. Among them, the most hotly pursued is Raven Quickskill, a poet who seeks freedom in Canada, and ultimately hopes to return and liberate others. But this particular Civil War–era landscape is littered with modern elements, from Xerox copiers to airplanes, and freely reimagines historic figures as sacred as Abraham Lincoln. A comedy flashing with insight, Flight to Canada poses serious questions about history and the complex ways that race relations in America are shaped by the past. /divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Ishmael Reed including rare images of the author./div

The seventh book in the Chronicles of the Cheysuli continues a tale of magical warriors and shapeshifters as they battle the sorcerers that threaten their existence Aidan, only child of Brennan and Aileen, and the grandson of Niall, is heir to the Lion Throne of Homana and inheritor, too, of a prophecy carried down through the generations and finally on the verge of fulfillment. But will Aidan, driven as he is by strange visions and portents, prove the weak link in the ages-old prophecy—the Cheysuli who fails to achieve his foretold destiny? For as Aidan prepares to set out for Erinn to claim his betrothed, he will become the focus of forces out of legend, visited by the ghosts of long-dead kinsmen, and by the Hunter, a mysterious being who may be a Cheysuli god incarnate. Commanded by the Hunter to undertake a quest to claim a series of "god-given" golden links, Aidan will find himself challenged by the Cheysuli's most deadly foe—Lochiel, the son of Strahan—who will use every trick of Ihlini sorcery to stop Aidan and destroy the promise of the prophecy once and for all....

Demonstrating the extraordinary versatility of African-American men's writing since the 1970s, this forceful collection illustrates how African-American male novelists and playwrights have absorbed, challenged, and expanded the conventions of black American writing and, with it, black male identity. From the "John Henry Syndrome"--a definition of black masculinity based on brute strength or violence--to the submersion of black gay identity under equations of gay with white and black with straight, the African-American male in literature and drama has traditionally been characterized in ways that confine and silence him. Contemporary Black Men's Fiction and Drama identifies the forces that limit black male discourse, including traditions established by iconic African-American male authors such as James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison. This thoughtful volume also shows how contemporary black male authors use their narratives to put forward new ways of being and knowing that foster a more complete sense of self and more humane and open ways of communicating with and relating to others. In the work of Charles Johnson, Ernest Gaines, and August Wilson, contributors find paths toward broader, less rigid ideas of what black literature can be, what the connections among individual and communal resistance can be, and how black men can transcend the imprisoning models of hyper masculinity promoted by American culture. Seeking greater spiritual connection with the past, John Edgar Wideman returns to the folk rituals of his family, while Melvin Dixon and Brent Wade reclaim African roots and traditions. Ishmael Reed struggles with a contemporary cultural oppression that he sees as an insidious echo of slavery, while Clarence Major's experimental writing suggests how black men might reclaim their own voices in a culture that silences them. Taking in a wide range of critical, theoretical, cultural, gender, and sexual concerns, Contemporary Black Men's Fiction and Drama provides provocative new readings of a broad range of contemporary writers.